President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday vowed to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and provocations, underlining that the Korean Peninsula’s peace and independence depends on denuclearization.The speech, delivered on the nation’s Independence Movement Day, reflected the president’s drive to put the North Korean dilemma at the top of the agenda, above all other pending issues.(Yonhap)“The spirit of the March 1 movement was to promote the unity and independence of our pe

Politics March 1, 2016

Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest automotive conglomerate, will start building a 105-story structure early next year on the land it bought from Korea Electric Power Corp.  last year, Seoul city officials said Wednesday.The massive building plan was finally agreed upon between the Seoul metropolitan government and Hyundai Motor after preliminary negotiations for the past six months on the urban development plan.The two sides had a series of meetings to review Hyundai's construction p

Industry Feb. 17, 2016

South Korea's M2 money supply shrank slightly from a month earlier in December, marking the first on-month drop in over a year, central bank data showed Monday.The M2 came to 2,241.8 trillion won ($1.85 trillion won) last month, down 0.1 percent from revised 2,244.3 trillion won the previous month, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.The December tally marked a 7.5 percent increase from a year earlier.The M2 refers to currency in circulation, including bank debentures and deposi

Feb. 15, 2016

Growth of South Korean banks' household lending slowed sharply in January from a month earlier as a recent U.S. rate hike weakened consumer spending here, central bank data showed Monday.Outstanding household loans from local banks came to 641.3 trillion won ($530 billion) as of end-January, up 2.2 percent from the previous month, according to data from the Bank of Korea.The on-month increase compares with a 6.9 percent gain in December.The rise was solely attributed to an increase in home-backe

Feb. 15, 2016

South Korea on Friday unveiled a set of measures to help minimize any losses incurred by South Korean firms from the closure of a joint factory park in North Korea.North Korea expelled all South Korean nationals on Thursday from the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city and froze factory assets by South Korean firms in retaliation for Seoul's decision to shut down the complex. (Yonhap)Earlier this week, South Korea shut down the industrial park in response to the North's latest n

North Korea Feb. 12, 2016

South Korean stocks took another drubbing from a plunge in Japan and other major equity markets Friday as panicked investors dumped shares. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shed 26.26 points, or 1.41 percent, to end at 1,835.28. This followed a nearly 3 percent plunge the previous day. (Yonhap)Trading volume was moderate at 465.67 million shares worth 6.2 trillion won ($5.1 billion), with decliners outpacing gainers 739 to 11

Feb. 12, 2016

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In a landmark discovery for physics and astronomy, scientists said Thursday they have glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time that Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.When two black holes collided some 1.3 billion years ago, the joining of those two great masses sent forth a wobble that hurtled through space and reached Earth on September 14, 2015, when it was picked up by sophisticated instruments, researchers announc

Technology Feb. 12, 2016

The head of a South Korean policy lender has been appointed a vice president of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the finance ministry here said Wednesday.Hong Ky-ttack, the president of state-run Korea Development Bank, will serve as the chief risk officer of the AIIB. The new bank has five vice presidents. Hong Ky-ttackHe will start his three-year tenure after the AIIB sets the exact inauguration schedule, according to the ministry.It is the first time in 13 years for

Feb. 3, 2016

South Korea plans to jack up its fiscal spending by an additional 21 trillion won ($17.4 billion) in the first quarter in an effort to pump-prime the economy struggling with faltering exports, the finance ministry said Wednesday.It will also extend a consumption tax cut program on passenger cars, which was set to finish at the end of December, to June to bolster domestic demand.Asia's fourth-largest economy is grappling with plummeting exports in the face of a crippling downturn in oil prices an

Feb. 3, 2016

The government said Wednesday it will nurture the property market into becoming a high value-added service sector by boosting real estate investment funds in a bid to make it a new economic growth engine.The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it will lower barriers and give tax incentives to boost the real estate investment trusts sector to spearhead the development of the local properties market.REITS are a type of security that invests in real estate to be traded on major exch

Business Feb. 3, 2016